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The nearest thing currently planned/available is the electric Smart. It will cost rather more than Alan's target, but also has all the currently required safety features like airbags and ESP and generally good crash test results.

The economics of these small electric cars is always a little dubious to me with the current price premiums.
If I drive my old petrol Smart 60 miles a day (typical small EV range) the fuel cost in the UK would be around £5. If I do this 300 days out of 365 (daily commute and shopping some weekends) the annual fuel cost would be £1500.
Current internet information suggests that the price of a basic electric Smart is ~6000 Euros more than a basic petrol version. There is also a lease charge for the battery. 6000 Euros is currently around £5000 so if electricity was free the payback period would be more than 3 years. If I pay for the electricity and the battery leasing there is probably no payback.
18000 miles a year is quite high for a city car. If you look at a more typical mileage, <10000 miles per year, the situation looks even less favorable.
The only ways this would make sense is if the government (taxpayer) pays the £5000 supplement or in London where you don't have to pay the (£10 per day?) congestion charge.

Electric cars has changed the perspective of all car enthusiast since it was released in t he market.Green cars are very popular, including the first generation of electric automobiles. The 3rd EV from a major manufacturer, the Mitsubishi i, has only been accessible for a few months, but is spreading across the United States. Resource for this article: Deliveries of Mitsubishi i expand beyond West Coast

I think some of the members are heading off target, from the original, one could assume they already have the car.
Its reasonably straight forward engineering- but a pain time wise. Ive seen a beatle that was converted by some students here in Canada, also a reverse trike made from scratch.
The problem is the battery capacity, and range.
Secondly do you go AC motor+regening VFD, or DC motor, then individual motors or central.
I would say initially as existing car, go central, unless you want to engineer a virtual diff.
What electrical system are you most comfortable with-AC orDC? admittedly I would go AC, as an squirrel cage induction motor is cheap, readily available, and an inverter wont brake the bank(regen part can be added to some as a retro fit), also near zero maintenance- no brushes.

Hi
1 litre of petrol will produce about 15 kWh of energy of which at least 5 kWh are lost as heat. You may be able to reclaim a little to heat your car!! So say 14 pence per unit.
Depending on your off peak rate; you may find your EV is cheaper to run and maintain but costs of depreciation and replacement battery a query.
CliveS

Hey Jencam and all, I share the desire to convert to EV! For a car like the MR2, if you did it yourself, it would cost about $10,000 USD in parts alone- well worth zero emissions imho. That includes motor, batteries, boards, wiring,

Not sure who does it for MR2's but check out canev.com they do canadian conversions for some cars, this should help you get an idea.

Also, some food for thought- the future of the battery as we know it is about to change! Graphene is about the revolutionize the industry; imagine charging your iphone from dead to full in 30 seconds, or charging an electric car...like an MR2 conversion with a graphene supercapacitor battery back in about a minute!

The above mentioned technology was actually discovered by mistake, check it out by doing a google search for "Accidental supercapacitor discovery Brian Golden Davis" and enjoy!

Originally posted by: DanielciaraAll Important is we are saving our environment by using electric cars.

Be careful here - the case is not clear that an electric car has a smaller environomental footprint to an IC car, partly because of the impact of charging the car and partly because of the impact of building and disposing of the batteries. They do certainly reduce emissions in cities of course.

It is very rare that you find a simple environmental issue! Not that this is any excuse for not trying to address them.

All Important is we are saving our environment by using electric cars.

Be careful here - the case is not clear that an electric car has a smaller environomental footprint to an IC car, partly because of the impact of charging the car and partly because of the impact of building and disposing of the batteries. They do certainly reduce emissions in cities of course.

It is very rare that you find a simple environmental issue! Not that this is any excuse for not trying to address them.

Every thing in this world has "advantage and disadvantage", but if we think only about disadvantage then unable to use any thing.
Environment is not simple issue it is better that we have to think about it because our future generation will depend on the present.
Every thing in this world depend on the energy, main concern is how we are getting that energy either by saving our natural resources or by wasting them without any concern.
In my opinion we have to use certain type of vehicle like by-cycle for daily purpose lifestyle to contribute a penny towards nature or prefer solar vehicles that completely save our nature.

I think you may have missed my point, electric vehicles are certainly not pollution free, and might not even produce less pollution than IC vehicles (depending on how the electricity is generated).

I totally agree that cycling is a much better alternative (for all sorts of reasons)!

And I totally agree that we must reduce our pollution footprint for the human race to survive (although not an expert in this area, I think nature will survive in some form even if we do carry on as we are). But we cannot just assume that because we use something labelled as "green", such as electric cars, that we are actually doing something useful. As I said above, you need to look at the pollution footprint of the electricity generation method, and of the battery manufacturing and disposal.

Has any research been carried out into determining the average lifespan of an electric car? Will they last longer than cars with internal combustion engines? What are the most likely reasons why an electric car will be scrapped?

I think that the electric car as "green technology" is overestimated.
We have already today an alternative for emission free car, and is the NGV car that run on bio-methane. As LCA it emits like 5g of CO2 per 100 km when runs on bio-methane, as an electric car that runs on renewable electricity, but we have already the technology at hand. It is possible to convert easily petrol cars to NGVs and biogas production is increasing.